Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2014/244

bitcoin.BitMint: Reconciling Bitcoin with Central Banks

Gideon Samid

Abstract: The sweeping success of the original (2008) bitcoin protocol proves that digital currency has arrived. The mounting opposition from the financial establishment indicates an overshoot. We propose to tame bitcoin into bitcoin.BitMint: keeping the bitcoin excitement -- fitted into real world security, stability and fraud concerns.
The basic idea is to excise the bitcoin money generation formula, and otherwise apply bitcoin essentially “as is” over digital coins which are redeemable by the mint that minted them. This will preserve the bitcoin assured anonymity. The new bitcoin.BitMint solution will benefit from bitcoin’s double-spending prevention, and would otherwise enjoy all the benefits associated with money in a digital form.
bitcoin.BitMint will allow traders to invest in US$, gold, or any other commodity while practicing their trade in cyberspace, anonymously, securely, and non-speculatively.
This “mint-in-the-middle” protocol will allow law enforcement authorities to execute a proper court order to enforce the disclosure of a suspected fraudster, but the community of honest traders will trade with robust privacy as offered by the original bitcoin protocol.
We envision interlinked bitcoin.BitMint trading environments, integrated via an InterMint protocol: a framework for the evolution of a cascaded super currency – global and highly stable.